ivy bridge cpu mobo combo no contest. I'm not partial to any brand but I am kind of an MSI fanboy. IME they offer great performing products at a lower price then asus. Z77A-GD65 or GD55 are both great boards. the 55 being a bit cheaper and probably more suiting for your needs as you aren't going for tri sli or tri fire.

Another i5 vote. Unless you specifically need a feature on the higher end motherboard in the AMD rig, then the i5 the the way to go. No matter how far you OC the 6300 its not going to beat a mildly OCed 3570k.

Thanks guys!
I guess the only feature I like about the AMD board is the Tens of thousands of USB ports, and the TUF rating.
Seems like i5 it is!
I'll only ever run a single GPU setup so I'll check out the MSI boards.

just get the i5 and another Z77 mobo with good cooling. I had AMD for the last 10 years but today I have a new system with i5 3550 and H77 mobo, system is so quiet, I cannot even tell if it is turned on. Using Intel stock HSF, the one with copper core.

Try to buy a bundle rather than each part separately. There's far more savings in CPU/MOBO bundles.
AMD can save you more money if you elaborate a bit more on "HD videos, Code compilation".

I was looking into an Intel bundle but the i5 is $60 cheaper at microcenter and I don't see bundles listed.
1080P youtube videos,
Visual Studio 2012, Processing, C, C++, and some other low level stuff.
I'd rather not go with an APU though, if that's what you meant by AMD saving me money.

The PC will be used for the following items: Office,Internet browsing,HD videos,Code compilation,and some Gaming (BF3,BFBC2).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil Genius Jr.

Would an i7-3770K be overkill for me? I ordered the asrock mobo on sale for $100 so I might be able to squeeze the i7 in if it will offer something more.

The price difference between the 3770K and 3570K would be better spent on another part of your system, like cooling (to overclock the 3570K), GPU (for your gaming), or an SSD (it's just great to have Visual Studio open in 2 seconds).

__________________"The computer programmer says they should drive the car around the block and see if the tire fixes itself." [src]